People are looking at the dazzling rise of gold Should we or shouldn't we invest ? By the time the masses are investing , then it is probably too late, but gold may be an exception. Q.Look at what is down currently and what do we see ? A. Land - buy it cheap now. The lack of food is going to be a major problem around the world in the next few years. Buying a small holding of a few acres, growing your own and selling the surplus makes a lot of sense. Good for the nerves and physically reasonably demanding. Be your own boss too.
interestingly enough,but just an hour ago we talked with my relative about possibility of buying a collective farm with 200 acre of potato field. it might be a good idea in the light of the upcoming events. hmmmm...........
Looking at the fatties in this town, I'd say many of them could quit eating for 90 days and wouldn't be "starving".
Farming is not quite that easy. I always laugh at these type of posts, that recommend buying "a few acres" and growing your own food, selling surplus, etc. Also, farmland is very expensive currently.
I seem to recall reading that Jim Rogers mentioned the next boom is going to be agriculture, so perhaps it's worth looking at those type of stocks. Food production is a high tech industry, so in my long term portfolio, I'm looking at things like POT & MON which make agricultural chemicals and seed as well as DE & ADM which make farm equipment.
In China you rent what's called a Moo. You take one acre and divide it up into six small plots and each plot is a moo so that's 1/6 acre. They figure that's all one person can productively work by hand by themselves. I have family in Mali and they complain they can't compete with US cotton because of the subsidies. A typical farm there is 7 acres. Well heck, how much money could a TX cotton farmer make on 7 acres?
Don't forget to look at demolition companies. They should make a lot of money when we start tearing down cities to make room for the new growth industry of corn farming.
There is a signifant difference between what Chinese and American farmers would call "earning a living". Also, it's not the subsidies that make them uncompetitive, there is likely an enormous gap in technology (equipment, fertilizers, etc).
In Mali, the old guys farm by hand. The new young men are trying to learn how to use cattle to pull a hand made plow. The old guys watch them and either laugh or shake their head. The average farmer in Mali makes about $200 a year after seeds and fertilizer. They grow their own food but almost never can afford to buy meat. Occasionally people pool their money and buy a few chickens, but there is very little food for the chickens to eat, and usually times get hard and they just end up eating the chickens before they can hatch chicks.
Great post. Some land is cheap right now. During the depression my mom's family bought up bean fields all over the area they lived in and farmed some and sold the others at a profit when things stabilized. There is property tax to be considered but generally buying land (not too remote, outskirts of town basically) isn't a bad idea. Growing food is no joke either. I'm preparing a small spot (maybe 60 ft x 40 ft) for a garden next year. Just trying to figure out how I'm going to keep the legions of animals out. I'm going to have to have a serious fence or something. Gold can't feed you, land can feed you with a great deal of work. Hard to see any downside except you get less time to couch-camp and watch sports.